heedless of all obstacles.

Jabe Raulsbury’s farm had once been part of Riveredge, but one by one his broad acres had been sold so that now only a small section of the original farmstead remained to him, and this was a constant eyesore to his neighbors, owing to its neglected condition, for beautiful homes had been erected all about it upon the acres he had sold at such a large profit. Several good offers had been made him for his property by those who would gladly have bought the land simply to have improved their own places and thus add to the attraction of that section of Riveredge. But no; not another foot of his farm would Jabe Raulsbury sell, and if ever dog-in-the-manger was fully demonstrated it was by this parsimonious irascible man whom no one respected and many heartily despised.

This wild, wet afternoon he was seated upon a stool just within the shelter of his barn sorting over a pile of turnips which lay upon the floor near him. He was not an attractive figure, to say the least, as he bent over the work. Cadaverous, simply because he was too parsimonious to provide sufficient nourishing food to meet the demands of such a huge body. Unkempt, grizzled auburn hair and grizzled auburn beard, the latter sparse enough to disclose the sinister mouth. Eyes about the color of green gooseberries and with about as much expression.

As he sat there tossing into the baskets before him the sorted-out turnips, he became aware of rapidly approaching footsteps, and raised his head just as a small figure came hurrying around the corner of the barn, for the scramble up the steep bank, and rapid walk across the wet pastures, had set Jean’s heart a-beating, and that, coupled with her indignation, caused her to pant. She had gone first to the house, but had there learned from Mrs. Raulsbury, a timid, nervous, woefully-dominated individual, who looked and acted as though she scarcely dared call her soul her own, that “Jabe was down yonder in the far-barn sortin’ turnips.” So down to the “far-barn” went Jean.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Raulsbury,” she began, her heart, it must be confessed, adding, rather than lessening its number of beats, at confronting the forbidding expression of the individual with whom she was passing the time of day.

“Huh!” grunted Jabe Raulsbury, giving her one searching look from between his narrowing eyelids, and then resuming his work. Most children would have been discouraged and dropped the conversation then and there. Jean’s lips took on a firmer curve.

“I guess after all it isn’t a good afternoon, is it? It is a pretty wet, horrid one, and not a very nice one to be out in, is it?”

“Wul, why don’t ye go home then?” was the gruff retort.

“Because I have an important matter to ’tend to. I was on my way to visit Amy Fletcher; her cat is sick! he was hurt dreadfully yesterday; she thinks somebody must have tried to shoot him and missed him, for his shoulder is all torn. If anybody did do such a thing to Bunny they’d ought to be ashamed of it, for he’s a dear. If I knew who had done it I’d—I’d—.”

“Wal, what would ye do to ’em, heh?” and a wicked, tantalizing grin overspread Jabe Raulsbury’s face.

“Do? Do? I believe I’d scratch his eyes out; I’d hate him so, for being so cruel!” was the fiery, unexpected reply.

“Do tell! Would ye now, really? Mebbe it’s jist as well fer him that ye don’t know the feller that did it then,” remarked Raulsbury, although he gave a slight hitch to the stool upon which he was sitting as he said it, thus widening the space between them.

“Well I believe I would, for I despise a coward, and only a coward could do such a thing.”

“Huh,” was the response to this statement. Then silence for a moment was broken by the man who asked:

“Wal, why don’t ye go along an’ see if the cat’s kilt. It aint here.”

“No, I know that, but I have found something more important to ’tend to, and that’s why I came up here, and it’s something you ought to know about too: Old Baltie has tumbled down the bank at the place in the pasture where the fence is broken, and is in the ditch. I don’t know how long he’s been there, but he’s all wet, and muddy and shivery and he can’t get up. I came up to tell you, so’s you could get a man to help you and go right down and get him out. I tried, but I wasn’t strong enough, but he’ll die if you don’t go quick.”

Jean’s eyes shone and her cheeks were flushed from excitement as she described Baltie’s plight, and paused only because breath failed her.

“Wal, ’spose he does; what then? What good is he to anybody? He’s most twenty-five year old an’ clear played-out. He’d better die; it’s the best thing could happen.”

The shifty eyes had not rested upon the child while the man was speaking, but some powerful magnetism drew and held them to her deep blazing ones as the last word fell from his lips. He tried to withdraw them, ejected a mouthful of tobacco juice at one particular spot which from appearances had been so favored many times before, drew his hand across his mouth and then gave a self-conscious, snickering laugh.

“I don’t believe you understood what I said, did you?” asked Jean quietly. “I’m sure you didn’t.”

“Oh yis I did. Ye said old Baltie was down in the ditch yonder and like ter die if I didn’t git him out. Wal, that’s jist ’zactly what I want him to do, an’ jest ’zactly what I turned him out inter that field fer him ter do, an’ jist ’zactly what I hope he will do ’fore morning. He’s got the last ounce o’ fodder I’m ever a’goin’ ter give him, an’ I aint never a’goin’ ter let him inter my barns agin. Now put that in yer pipe an’ smoke it, an’ then git out durned quick.”

Jabe Raulsbury had partially risen from his stool as he concluded this creditable tirade, and one hand was raised threateningly toward the little figure standing with her dripping umbrella just within the threshold of the barn door.

That the burly figure did not rise entirely, and that his hand remained suspended without the threatened blow falling can perhaps best be explained by the fact that the child before him never flinched, and that the scorn upon her face was so intense that it could be felt.

CHAPTER III—The Spirit of Mad Anthony

Jean Carruth stood thus for about one minute absolutely rigid, her face the color of chalk and her eyes blazing. Then several things happened with extreme expedition. The position of the closed umbrella in her hands reversed with lightning-like rapidity; one quick step forward, not backward, was made, thus giving the intrepid little body a firmer foothold, and then crash! down came the gun-metal handle across Jabe Raulsbury’s ample-sized nasal appendage.

The blow, with such small arms to launch it, was not of necessity a very powerful one, but it was the suddenness of the onslaught which rendered it effective, for not one sound had issued from the child’s set lips as she delivered it, and Jabe’s position placed him at a decided disadvantage.

He resumed his seat with considerable emphasis, and clapping his hand to his injured feature, bellowed in the voice of an injured bull:

“You—you—you little devil! You—you, let me get hold of you!”

But Jean did not obey the command or pause to learn the result of her deed. With a storm of the wildest sobs she turned and fled from the barnyard, down the driveway leading to the road, and back to the spot where she had left Baltie in his misery, her tears nearly blinding her, and her indignation almost strangling her; back to the poor old horse, so sorely in